Wolf Children Movie Synopsis
by Kratos-aurion-10987
Summary: I've had a number of people on other sites who have expressed interest in reading my work, but I don't like to link my Wolf Children fanfiction to people who haven't seen the movie. Well, I decided that since it's nearly impossible to find the movie online, I would write up a full on synopsis of it for those who can't watch it or want a refresher of the plot.


(I figured, for those who have not seen the movie, and are not concerned with spoilers, or who have not seen the movie in a long time, I would go ahead and type up a synopsis of the movie. It's gonna be a bit long-winded, as I know from typing it up for others in the past)

The story starts out centered around Hana, a young woman in college in Japan. One day, she sees a young man in the class who seemed out of place. He had no textbook, and at the class's end, he left without filling out an attendance slip, which would cause him to be marked absent. She headed after him to remind him, only to find out he wasn't a student there. She watched him for a short time, seeing how kind he was with a child who fell, though from the comments of the other adults in the background, no one knew who he was. Hana more or less invited him to spend time with her by offering to share her textbook if he should return to that class. Hoping to see him again, she wore a nice, yet still casual dress to class the next day. The unnamed man(really my only complaint in the movie) was late arriving to class that day, tending to his job duties helping people move in. After they are seen in the library, the scene cuts away to the two of them walking together on a date, and she explains how her father named her Hana after a cosmos flower that sprang up in her childhood back yard with no one having planted it, and how he wanted her to be full of life and always smiling like that flower. She mentioned about how she would always give life her best smile when times got tough, even at his funeral, for which one of her relatives scolded her. She questioned aloud if it was disrespectful, but the young man said he thought it was the perfect thing to do.

Over the next few months, the two dated, having a meeting spot in front of a little coffee shop. One day, he commented about how he'd like to have a home. A place he truly belonged. Hana smiled as she said, "I could belong there too, if you don't mind the company." As he walked her home that night, he said there was something he needed to tell her, but he decided against it. The amount of time that passed between that night and the night of their next date is unclear, but there were Christmas decorations about, and Hana was wearing a heavy coat. She went to their usual meeting spot, but he was nowhere to be seen. She waited there until long after the surrounding businesses had closed. Finally, his voice is heard as he apologizes for being so late, and she looked up with a smile.

The scene switches to an image of the night sky. The young man speaking to Hana says, "I never told anyone this. I was scared. I still am because it's you, but you deserve to see me for who I am. No! For what I am." He asked her to close her eyes, and when she opened them, she was greeted by the sight of his slow transformation from simple young man to werewolf. Once his transformation was completed and he stood there as a two legged wolf in front of her, he asked her to tell him what she saw before her. With the scene turned back to the night sky, the narrator, Yuki, says that he explained about how attacking people and changing under the full moon were myths. Though Hana knew the world was full of mysteries, the wolf man's heart was no mystery. She knew him well, and even knowing his secret, she loved him. Yuki then went on to explain how her father had lived alone for the longest time, as being the only remaining one to have the blood of both human and Honshu wolf, a real-world species of wolf said to have gone extinct over 100 years ago, his parents had implored him to keep it secret, before they passed. He was convinced others would not accept him if they knew that truth, so he didn't let himself grow close to anyone, until he met Hana.

The two now lived together as a couple in Hana's apartment. They shared their lives, and he shared his history, at least to some degree. Snipits of their day to day lives were shown, with the next significant event being as Hana walks away from the hospital, having just learned she was pregnant. The wolf man was a wonderful lover, helping her through the struggles that come with being an expecting mother, while also holding down his job. It even showed one night as he came in holding a pheasant(at least I think it was) that was still alive. Presumably, he caught it as a wolf. On the night of their first child's birth, the snow was falling outside, and that was how she received her name; Yuki, who happens to be the narrator of the story as well. Fearing that Yuki might come into the world in wolf form, the two opted for neither hospital, nor midwife, delivering her alone in that little apartment. As they held their new daughter, they expressed their wishes that she would grow up to be healthy, with a gentle heart, and their faith that she could be anything she wanted. Hana expressed her wish for Yuki to grow up to be happy, and the wolf man gently declared it was up to the two of them to make it happen.

About a year later, the couple's second child, a young boy, was born on a rainy day, which is how he got the name of Ame, meaning Rain. That day, the wolf man stepped out, but he didn't return in quite some time. Concerned, Hana took the children, one in a carrier on her front, one in a carrier on her back, and headed out to look for him. Right outside her door were a couple bags of groceries, and inside one was the wolf man's wallet. As she searched the city looking for him, she came to a bridge overlooking a canal. The rain, which grew ever louder up to this point, went silent as Hana dropped her umbrella, and next thing shown was her beloved, in the form of a full on four-legged wolf, dead in the canal below. His cause of death was never revealed, but Yuki stated that it was likely wolf instinct that drove him out into the rain that day, to hunt down food for his newborn and his mate. His body was recovered by city sanitation workers, who threw him into a garbage truck. Hana ran to them, trying to stop them, but she couldn't. No one questioned why she was in such despair over the death of what they perceived to be a wild animal, a fact for which she was lucky. This left Hana with the task of raising Ame and Yuki alone. Being a single parent is challenging enough, but for Hana, this was a bit more challenging.

Young Yuki, now speaking her first lines, was demanding food, and after her third demand, she turned into a wolf, standing on two legs, before running to the corner on four legs and kicking over a trash can. As narrator, she said Hana told her she turned into a wolf whenever she got cranky, which was quite often. Yuki was a headstrong girl with an appetite that just wouldn't quit, and she was constantly causing trouble, from nearly pulling a bottle off the table onto her head, averted by Ame alerting Hana, and Hana narrowly catching it in time, to nearly pulling a large dresser over on the three of them, which Hana caught and just managed to push back up, to tearing up and chewing things all over the apartment in wolf form. Ame, on the other hand, was far less willful, and his appetite was almost non-existent. There were nights when Ame would just cry and cry for reasons caused a lot of problems with their neighbors, and with Hana having no one to turn to for help raising wolf children, and having not asked the wolf man much about his childhood, she devoted any time she wasn't taking care of them, usually the short time they were sleeping that Ame wasn't crying, to reading whatever books she could find, both on childcare and on wolves.

She faced quite the dilemma when Yuki got sick. Hana carried Yuki to a street corner, on one side of which was a children's hospital, and on the other side of which was a veterinarian. Unable to figure out the best course of action, she called what I presume to be a poison control center, and luckily found out that Yuki would be okay. In the next scene, Yuki is demanding to go for a walk, which Hana agrees to if Yuki will "tuck your ears in first," referring to Yuki being in wolf form. With a shake of her head, Yuki goes back to human form, but a moment later is back to being a wolf, leaping and yipping excitedly. Another reminder from Hana and she turned back to a human again, ready to go. As they walked through the park, Hana kept a distance from the other kids, and they got quite the scare as a dog barked at Yuki, and Yuki, fairly well hidden by her raincoat, snarled back at it, only her face having turned to a muzzle. Hana quickly scooped her up, keeping her face hidden and running home. A few separate incidents were shown after that, one being Hana confronting the landlord of the apartment, who has heard Ame and Yuki howling at night and believes Hana to have pets, which is against the rules. Another being two agents from child protective services there to see Ame and Yuki, who have never been to a doctor, and Hana having to shut the door on them because the kid were sleeping in wolf form. Once more, the three of them are shown in the park, presumably early in the morning before most others would be awake, Ame and Yuki having fun chasing each other as wolves(just don't ask me how their coats changed to accommodate their tails). Hana thought for a bit before calling them over. She posed a question to them. "If you could only be one thing, would you be people or wolves?" Both tilted their heads with a "Huh?" It was then Hana made the decision to move to some place where they wouldn't have so many prying eyes around, because she wanted Ame and Yuki to be free to make that choice for themselves.

Presumably, the place they moved to was where the wolf man had grown up. It was far out in the country. The home they bought was quite large, and the first impressions would have repelled anyone with how much work it needed to repair it. The land included a large field and a fairly well-stocked tool shed. To the realtor's surprise, Hana quickly accepted the house, after hearing there were no neighbors for miles. A time lapse is shown, in which Hana is repairing the house, though it's unclear how much time passed in doing this, though from watching Yuki and Ame, it becomes clear Yuki is the wild child who is embracing her wolf side, while Ame is anything but. Once they finally had the place fixed up, they went to town to the grocery store, and Hana commented that night about how they had to start growing their vegetables instead of buying them because it was using up too much money. The following day, Hana went to the bookmobile to get some books on farming, and Yuki placed some storybooks on the counter that she wanted, though Yuki was halfway into her wolf form. Hana quickly saw this and pushed Yuki's hat down to cover her face. The scene skips back to them at home, Hana explaining to Yuki and Ame that they can't let their identity as wolves become known because it would surprise people too much. She also wanted them not to be bossy with the other animals of the wild.

Before the time lapse where Hana and the kids are starting to work the farm, Ame is reading a picture book, in which a wolf is being hunted down by angry townspeople and begging for its life. In the timelapse, Hana prepares the little home garden and Yuki and Ame help a bit with planting, but it's quickly shown their produce did not survive. She then is shown asking the neighbors, who I believe are all family to each other, or at least close enough to be called family, if she can take the fallen leaves in the woods, to which one of them replies "What are you asking permission for? Just take them." It becomes clear they have no faith that she'll make it working the land like that, and that she will leave as soon as she gets to missing convenience stores enough. As Hana is putting the second batch of plants in the ground, Ame approaches, one of the few times he's been seen in wolf form so far, all scratched up and sniffling. As Hana is comforting him, Yuki is bragging about how brave and strong she is, and how she doesn't let the other animals see her as weak(all the while munching on crackers).

The scene shifts and the three are out on a nature trail, Hana trying to teach them about their wolf side using what little she's learned from books. Yuki is excited about the idea of being a wolf, and being in a pack with Ame, though Ame is far less enthused about the idea. In fact, from his conversation with his mother, it's learned that because of what he's seen in the picture books, particularly the one where the angry villagers are chasing the wolf to kill it, he doesn't want to be a wolf because they're always the bad guy and they always get killed in the end. Even still, Hana reassured her son that she thinks wolves are nice, even if everyone else disagrees, and she'll stand up for the wolves until the end. Back at their home, they find that once again, their produce has died. Yuki becomes worried they aren't going to have enough food, and Hana puts on her smile, convincing Yuki that she needs only to study harder. It's then she gets to speak with the head of the Nirosaki family from the nearby town, whose first name is never given. He's only referred to as Grandpa Nirosaki. She's as kind as ever, glad about living out here in nature, and he mentioned that nature is was just killed her produce, and calls her out on not being suited for this sort of life, and calls her out on her habit of smiling all the time, claiming it makes her look like a fool.

In the next scene, it's raining out front, and a red car pulls up in front of the house. The lady inside quickly runs inside, and after Hana asks if she can help her, the lady hands her a bag of seed potatoes, mentioning about how her father, Grandpa Nirosaki, may act gruff, but he's harmless. The kind woman says hi to Ame and Yuki, who have run further inside the house, but they hide, Hana saying that they're simply shy. Back in the field, Hana digs a hole, and Yuki drops one of the seed potatoes in whole. In the distance, Grandpa Nirosaki is watching from his truck. He comes up and pulls the planted seed potatoes out of the ground. As Hana is watching him, unsure what he's doing, he turns to her and tells her that her soil isn't ready for planting. Over a time lapse of what I assume is only a day, maybe two, he instructs her how to prepare the soil, having her prepare an area much larger than what she thought she needed for just herself and the kids. As he gave her the final instruction, on how to plant the potatoes, he plopped the bag of them down and drove away as she was trying to say thank you.

She's shown in the field a bit later as the plants are starting to grow, and two of her neighbors bid her follow them. They bring her to a greenhouse, offering her advice of what to plant and how to go about fertilizing, though the two are at odds with each other on basically every instruction they're trying to give. Some of the other neighbors show up, offering her advice and tools for how to keep pests out of the garden, and recounting how many people they've seen come and go. They also mentioned about how, through all the struggles self-sufficient life has brought them, they at least have each other. She also gets the chance to meet some of the other young mothers from the town, one of whom mentions preschool. Overhearing this, Yuki became adamant she wanted to go to preschool, even having no idea what it was. She threw a full on tantrum, ending with her sobbing and promising she wouldn't turn into a wolf. Of course in the scene immediately following this promise, one of the neighbors is looking out the front of the house and happens to see Yuki standing there as a wolf, though she and her husband(I presume) were unable to tell her wolf form apart from a normal dog. In the moment they looked away, Yuki disappeared behind the house, coming inside in human form. The one neighbor commented how she and her doggy's clothes matched. Yuki jumped down from the front porch, then ran out front in wolf form, having changed out of sight behind the porch.

At last the time came for their first successful harvest, and they had so many potatoes, they couldn't possibly eat them all. Hana brought them to the neighbors to thank them for their help, and with each one she spoke to and gave them potatoes, they gave her some food right back. During one of the visits from the neighbors, when they were asking how Hana avoided the wild animals tearing up her garden, Yuki ran past them shouting that she had to pee. This seemed to lead Hana to believe that Yuki was marking her territory around the garden, and that kept the animals at bay, though she obviously did not share this thought. As Hana was stocking her fridge, Grandpa Nirosaki's daughter commented on what a "cute" fridge it was, and in the following scene, two of the men were bringing a full size fridge into the house. Hana insisted it was too much to accept, but they told her Grandpa Nirosaki would chew them out if they came back home with it. They made mention of how much he talked about her, one of them even jokingly saying the old man had a crush on Hana, before letting it slip that Grandpa Nirosaki had told them all to watch out for her. Hana took the chance to talk to Grandpa Nirosaki, telling him she figured out why he had her plant so much, thankful for his lesson about how they were all looking out for each other. Ever one to keep up his stone face, he told her to give it a rest, which made her laugh. She kept laughing even as he asked, "What's so funny? You just gonna stand there and laugh like a lunatic?" Back home, she was looking back on their journey so far, talking to the wolf man's driver's license, the only picture they had of him, as if he were there sitting with them. She was confident she'd made the right choice bringing them out that far, as the snow fell outside.

The next day, things got fun as she pulled open the door and, as young Yuki so enthusiastically pointed out, it had snowed, and boy, had it ever. Yuki immediately face-planted the snow before rolling excitedly in it. Ame tread a bit more carefully. Hana waited for the right moment before jumping and capturing both children under her arms in the snow, then rolling over so all three were looking towards the sky and laughing. The scene shifts with Yuki and Ame running through the snow as humans, though it doesn't take long for both to turn into wolves, Hana running behind them with a smile on their face and carrying their clothes. The camera shifts to a first-person from Yuki's eyes as she runs through the snow, before shifting to a bird's eye view overlooking a tall snowy hill that Yuki and Ame are running down. The camera switches to the two of them separately, sliding and doing flips in the snow as they went down the hill. Hana, finally catching up, is far less adept at the snowy hill, going down a third rolling, an eighth on her feet, and the rest on her back, before the three landed at the bottom, all three howling in sequence, first Yuki, then Ame, and at last Hana. On their return trip to the house, both kids in wolf form, Ame caught sight of a kingfisher on a rock in the nearby stream. He sneaked up and grabbed it, and it would have been a successful catch, if not for Ame tripping over his scarf and falling into the stream. The camera angle makes the stream seem more like a river, which it basically was from Ame's point of view. Yuki called for Hana to come help, before Ame hit his head on a rock and began to sink, Hana running as fast and desperately as she can to reach him. At the point where it seemed Ame was about to black out, there's a splash around him, and Hana is shown coming around the corner of a rock to where Yuki, having rescued Ame, is in wolf form panting, and Ame is lying in the snow, in human form, unconscious, his skin pale. Tears in her eyes, Hana shakes Ame, begging him to open his eyes, before embracing him, fearing he's gone, until finally he says, "Mommy, you're squishing me." As she pulled back to look into his eyes, he has a big smile, and though his voice is weak from his ordeal, he seems truly joyful as he recounts it, though he seems to have so quickly forgotten falling in, not realizing why he and Yuki are all wet. As he speaks, color is gradually returning to his skin, until at last Hana is sure he's okay and pulls both he and Yuki into a big hug.

Yuki as narrator recalls how on that day, Hana felt her heart had stopped, but for Ame, it was the opposite. It was an awakening that caused his timid nature to finally melt away. At the end of the winter, as spring began, so was elementary school. Narrator Yuki recalls how hard she tried to convince Hana she was the perfect daughter so she could be allowed to attend, and how it had apparently worked. Hana agreed to let her go, with the obvious condition that she not turn into a wolf. She had even come up with a chant for the wolf girl to help her keep it under control. The chant went "I'm gonna be a little girl all the way home," and the excitable Yuki embraced it whole-heartedly. The first time she's seen in the gymnasium with all the other kids, her fear is apparent on her face, but she didn't turn into a wolf, and her fear didn't last. She seemed to fit in well, despite her still ravenous appetite causing a number of surprised reactions. While Yuki was at school, Hana was out looking for a job, and one of the places she went had a bulletin board of job listings. On one of them, Ame pointed out a picture of a wolf, being cared for at a nature sanctuary. They headed to that sanctuary, the head conservationist invited them to attend a tour with a school group. After which, he was talking to Hana about the job they'd posted, and it almost seemed he was trying to talk her out of it, trying to talk her into taking on a different, better paying job. When he posed the question if she still wanted the job, knowing how little it would pay, she made mention of the wolf they were caring for. The scene changed to them standing in front of the wolf in its habitat. The employer, Tendo, was called away, leaving Ame and Hana looking at the wolf alone. For reasons I'll not understand, Hana began talking to the wolf, as though she thought this wolf was like her lover, able to turn into a human, asking the wolf to teach Ame about his wolf side, since she could not. She then learned as Tendo returned that the wolf had been born and raised in captivity and thus even if it could talk, it could teach Ame nothing about the wild. On the bus ride home, Hana mentioned she'd be going there a lot, suggesting she'd taken the job. Ame asked if his father had acted like that wolf, which Hana said he did not. Ame said that made him glad, and when asked why, he said because the zoo wolf's eyes looked rather sad. He said that he wanted to meet a wolf like his father, Hana telling him that his dad really was one of a kind.

After some time passed, Narrator Yuki tells us that Hana was settling into her new job, but Yuki as a child was starting to realize just how different she was from the other girls. Some key examples she shared were her love of catching snakes and collecting bugs and small animal bones, both things that made the other girls run away. As she shared this with Hana, her mother laughed, prompting Yuki to shout, "I am in a crisis!" Hana asked why it was Yuki wanted to change who she was, to become more graceful and ladylike as Narrator Yuki phrased it, young Yuki said it was because when she was herself, it made the others run away screaming. Hana didn't put up a fight, agreeing to help if it was that important to Yuki. Hana spent the evening making a new blue dress with flower print for Yuki. Apparently the change of clothes was enough to make her fit in with the other girls, who she said had become her own pack. Narrator Yuki then made mention of Ame starting school the following year, though he was far less excited about it. A time lapse is shown, skipping ahead two years with Yuki going from 2nd to 4th grade, and Ame from 1st to 3rd. As Ame's seat in the third grade class is shown empty, it switches to Hana driving a red car, presumably one she got either as part of her employment or bought with her wages, Ame in the passenger seat as they head to the nature sanctuary. Ame's voice had changed at this point, and he was not at all shy about admitting that he was skipping classes. As Hana worked at the counter in the sanctuary, it gave Ame time to spend sitting in front of the wolf's cage, as a wolf himself, though there didn't seem to be any sort of communication between them. The next day when Ame should have gone to school, which was a left turn on the road , he instead turned right, heading up into the mountains nearby.

Back at school, Yuki is at her desk as the teacher introduces a new student, a boy by the name of Souhei. Souhei is apparently more perceptive than most. His first question to Yuki is if she has dogs at home. When she asks why, he said she smelled like she did. This gave Yuki cause for fright. She tried to wash off the wolf smell in the bathroom, but it seemed it wasn't enough to put her at ease. She tried to avoid Souhei, thinking he might still pick up on it, but he wanted to find out why she was avoiding her, so he kept trying to talk to her. This ended up with him chasing her as she ran outside, whispering to herself the chant her mother had taught her; "I'm gonna be a little girl all the way home," the first time it had been heard since Hana first taught it to her. Before long, Souhei had her cornered, just trying to get her to talk to him. That was when her emotions hit a breaking point. A wolf whimper sound effect can be heard before Yuki swings her arm at Souhei and he falls back, blood falling on the ground as he hold his hand over his right ear. As Yuki is shown, she's panting and her fingernails have turned to claws, and her nose to a wolf nose. Her claws on her left hand are covered in blood, her teeth have become fangs, and her eyes are red, but no other wolf aspects are showing. The scene switches to Hana getting a phone call at work, then driving to school where she learns of the situation, though no one had seen what actually happened. At Hana's direction, Yuki apologized to Souhei, though Souhei's mother wasn't about to let it slide at a simple apology, saying that if Souhei's ear didn't heal, she would be suing Hana for everything. Souhei insisted that it was a wolf that hurt him, not Yuki. Of course, his mother thought he was talking crazy, and likely assumed it was from the trauma of the incident. Following that, Yuki returns to class, but she barely sits down before she gets up and runs out, meeting Hana back in the car. She truly regrets what happened, crying and leaning into her mother's hug for comfort.

The next scene shows Souhei, at least a few days later, still with the bandage on his ear, getting off at a bus stop that was apparently the closest to Hana's home. He's at the porch, trying to figure out if he should go inside when Hana pulls up in the car. Souhei quickly sets a piece of paper on the porch before running off. Hana takes it to Yuki, telling her it's homework from Souhei, but when Yuki heard Souhei's name, she pulled the blanket over her head. The next day, it's raining and Souhei has left an orange and some sort of roll in plastic wrap on the front porch, and Hana simply says it's from "You know who" as she sets it beside Yuki. The next visit, Souhei is walking past the garden when Hana calls out to him, informing him that Yuki is away playing with Shino. In this time, it seems she hasn't been back to school, likely trying specifically to avoid Souhei. Hana invites Souhei in for a drink since he comes so far every day. He says he does it because he doesn't want Yuki to quit school. As they sit in the kitchen, Hana asks Souhei about the day he was hurt and brings up the point that he said a wolf did it.(I honestly admire Hana's poker face in this scene.) He sticks to his story that it was a wolf who did it, and that though it sounds crazy, he saw the wolf for a split second. He also explicitly states that it was not Yuki who hurt him. Hana followed that up asking Souhei if he hates wolves because of the incident, to which he responds, "Nah, I think they're pretty cool." and Hana states that she feels the same way. The next day, as Yuki heads outside, Souhei is waiting there to see her. He asks if she wants to see his ear, and without waiting for a response, he rips the bandage off, revealing it's healed well, though left a rather unique scar. He asks if she wants to touch it, taking her hand and moving it to his ear. She asks if it hurts, and he says it itches, then is looking closely at her hand. She pulled it away quickly, before the two left for the school bus.

Right after they left, Ame walked out of the house, stating he was going to visit his sensei, who teaches him about life. Hana is then talking with one of the neighbors, who's glad to hear Yuki is back in class. At the same time, Hana is trying to find out if anyone knows who this Sensei might be, but no one seems to know of anyone who would be living way up in the mountains. As Hana and Ame are working in the garden, Ame is talking about Sensei, how he's lived in the mountain a long time and knows everything there is to know about the mountain. Hana says Ame should bring him home for a visit, to which Ame responds, "Sensei's not much for people. Then again, he'd probably be okay with you." Ame leads Hana to a large tree, at the base of which sits an old fox, who Ame says is Sensei. As thanks for teaching Ame what she can't, she offers the fox some sort of pastry and a puffy pink ball, which I assume is some sort of dumpling. She then watches as Sensei and Ame, in wolf form, head off further in the mountains. Their journey is shown as they race through the trees, leap across the rocks, run along narrow mountain paths, hunt down rabbits, find fresh water, learn where the animals reside and how to avoid walking into the path of a dangerous, all the while Sensei taking the extra time to make sure Ame was able to follow. Their journey ends with Ame looking over a huge lake way up in the mountains with a view very few if any humans have gotten to see in that area. Afterwards, Ame is back in the nature sanctuary with Hana, and though there are no vocals for the scene, he's telling Hana all about what he's seen out there. Switching back to the house, Yuki is trying to do homework while Ame is telling her about all the things he's learning with Sensei. He's trying to convince her to learn with Sensei, while she's trying to convince him to go to school. Yuki declares he's a human, while Ame plainly states that he isn't. When she says she's better living as a human, Ame tries to convince her that she's a wolf instead, ending with the two of them fighting as wolves, Hana trying to break it up with no success. The fight ends as Yuki runs into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. As Ame stands up, back in human form, his eye is a piercing red color. As Hana is cleaning up the mess of the fight, including putting the wolf man's license back on the bookshelf that acted as a shrine to him, she was talking to him again. She mentioned how Yuki and Ame were starting to choose their own paths. She brought them to this place to give them that choice, but seeing that they were, it was hard on her.

A time skip of approximately 2 years happens, and by this point, Ame is the spitting image of his father. Narrator Yuki mentioning that the next scene is during her final year of grade school. She recalls record breaking rains, and Ame is show walking in the mountain, seeing a fallen tree that crushed a bird nest and the baby birds within. As he returned home, Hana ran to draw a hot bath for him. He commented that Sensei had hurt his leg and was likely to die from it. He said that the mountain needed a new guardian and he felt it was his role to take on. Hana quickly grabbed his shoulders, telling him there was no way that was happening. She didn't want him going back onto the mountain. She insisted he was still a kid, only 10 years old. She mentioned that a 10 year old wolf was an adult, and was about to declare that he was not a wolf, but stopped herself, remembering that she had moved here to give him that choice. Even so, she begged him not to go back onto the mountain again, for her sake. The scene switches to the school, with various different shots being shown, all the while we are hearing some of the girls gossiping about how Souhei's mom is getting re-married and how Souhei knows nothing about it. The gossip ends as Souhei makes a basketball shot to apparently win the game for his team. That night, Ame wakes up in the middle of the night and sits out on the porch, looking towards the mountain. The next day starts with a radio broadcast about heavy rain as Yuki gets ready for school. Ame tells Yuki to stay home with her mother and not go to school, but Yuki rushes out as Hana reminds her the bus won't wait. Back in school, the heavy weather can be seen moving in, and back at the house, Hana starts bringing in the laundry before the rain, and putting boards over the windows to protect them from the high wind. At the school the teacher announces that they are ending school early and the kids need to go to the gym to be picked up by their parents. At the house, Hana is folding clothes, Ame sitting at the table when the power goes out. As Hana goes into the next room to find a light, Ame simply says "Sorry Mom," quietly. The storm is shown outside and Hana hangs up the phone after getting the call to pick up Yuki. She goes back to invite Ame to come with her, only to see him walking out the door. She follows after him, though the rain slows her while it seems to have little effect on him. A number of the students at school are being picked up. A few of the younger ones are afraid, while Souhei is trying to make them feel better saying they could play cards all night. As he's leaving, he sees Shino's father come in, and hears him offer to take Yuki home since they don't live far from her place. Yuki turns it down because she doesn't want Hana to have come so far for no reason, which Souhei missed because he'd already left. Yuki was unaware that Hana is chasing after Ame in the mountains. Yuki goes to find Souhei who hasn't returned in quite sometime. The few remaining kids got taken home by the teachers, yet apparently failed to tell them that Yuki and Souhei were still in the school, and the teachers failed to notice. Hana's efforts took her further and further into the mountains and she soon spotted a creature moving in the distance. Believing it was Ame, she chased after it, until she got close enough to see that the creature she had been chasing was a bear. She backed against a tree, sliding down as the bear stared right at her, but she was fortunately saved as the bear left with its cubs. Back at the school, Yuki found Souhei sleeping at his desk, and he was rather surprised when he woke up to see her there. When they returned to the gym to see that everyone else was gone, they began to explore the school. Teenage mellowdrama ensued as the two were talking about what they would do if no one came to get them, about how they would live at school, sleep in the nurse's office, and raid the lunch room for food, and if no one ever came for them, they would need to need someway to survive. Souhei said he'd lie about his age, try to pass as a middle schooler and get a job delivering papers or something. Yuki made mention of how she was tired of feeling like a kid.

Back in the mountain, Hana's exhaustion from her search is quite clear, and her footing had become poor, causing her to slide down the side of the hill. She catches herself on a tree, but the wet ground causes its roots to come loose, sending Hana tumbling down the mountain, hitting one tree after another. When she finally came to a stop, she's semi-conscious, talking about how she needs to keep Ame safe as her vision starts to blur from the rain. Back at the school, a security guard is searching for anyone who is left behind. Souhei and Yuki were hiding behind their desks, and after he leaves, Yuki asks the question that is surely on everyone's mind at this point. "Why were we hiding?" (This next scene is my favorite, so rather that putting it in my own words, I'm just going to type up the transcript.)  
Yuki: (looks out the window at the storm) "It's like an ocean, waiting to drown me. Souhei, were you serious about us living here?"  
Souhei: "If nobody shows up, we gotta."  
Yuki: "They will. I betcha your mom's on her way right now."  
Souhei: "As if."  
Yuki: "Why wouldn't she be?" (Camera moves back to Yuki's face as she looks up in realization.)  
Souhei: "You know why. She got married again. And she's having a baby with him. Once it gets here, she's not gonna need me."  
Yuki: "But when your ear got hurt, she was so worried about you."  
Souhei: "Don't get me wrong. It's not like I care. I'll just run away from home. Go be a wrestler or a boxer. Live my life like a lone wolf. So whatcha think?"  
Yuki: "You don't have a muscle on you, Souhei. You'll be out in a second."  
Souhei: "I'll train, non-stop, cause I'm alone." (Looks over to Yuki with a big grin)  
Yuki: (Looks out the window as emotional music starts to play in the background) "I wish I...I wish I could tell people the truth, and be fearless about it, and smile like it doesn't completely terrify me." (Opens the window, letting the wind and rain blow in, blowing the curtains around the window) "Souhei, that day when the wolf appeared out of nowhere and clawed up your ear..." (Curtain blows over her face, and when it goes back down, she has her wolf nose, wolf ears, and fangs.) "It was me."  
Souhei: (looks right at her, without a word)  
Yuki: "I've wanted to tell you for so long now." (Curtain blows over her face again, and when it goes back down, she's back to full human. Her voice is starting to break at this point.) "I couldn't not tell you anymore."  
Souhei: "All this time. I knew."  
Yuki: (gasps in surprise)  
Souhei: "Don't be afraid. I never told anyone, and I'm never gonna." (Yuki's eyes begin to fill with tears as Souhei continues speaking) "You're safe. No more crying."  
Yuki: (with a smile on her face, but unable to stop the tears) "I'm not crying. It's just rain." (Wipes her eyes as the curtain blows over her face again, still full human when it goes back down) "Thanks, Souhei."

(Back to my own words)  
The scene shifts back to Hana lying on the ground as something approaches her, though it's unclear what it is. The scene shifts to what I can only describe as a dreamscape, with Hana standing in a field of flowers. She sees someone in the distance, believing it to be Ame. She heads towards him, but when he turns around, she finds herself instead looking at her beloved, Ame and Yuki's father. She runs to him, happily embracing him and he consoles her on all the struggles she's been through raising their children alone, as mother and father both as he worded it, saying he watched over her the whole time. He complimented her for doing a good job raising them, to which she told him not to lie, saying she messed up a bunch. He said they both grew up fine, and she said he was wrong, now remembering that Ame was lost and she was looking for him. As she calls out for Ame, her beloved says Ame's fine, that he's an adult and he knows himself, and where he belongs. Back outside the dreamscape, Ame is carrying Hana back down the mountain and to the parking lot of what I assume is the nature sanctuary. She regains consciousness as he's walking away, and in the blink of an eye, he's back in wolf form. When he turns to look at her, his wolf form is the spitting image of his father's, with the only difference being the color of his eyes. She feels she's failed him as a mother, that she hasn't taught him anything important in life by this point, going so far as to ask what it is she's taught him. He hesitates for a few moments, before turning and leaping over the nearby rail and running up the mountain behind him as she's begging and pleading for him not to leave, hand outstretched towards the mountain as if trying to pull him back. As she lets her hand fall and hangs her head in defeat and sorrow, Ame steps up to the top of the mountain and gave his answer to her question "What have I taught you?" His answer, a mighty howl, filled with strength, confidence, and unshakable certainty, all virtues she had taught him throughout his life in the way she lived her own. Seeing and hearing him up there, her tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy, as she realized her lover's words were right. Ame was where he belonged. Knowing the meaning of his howl had reached her, Ame headed off into the woods, to his new home.

Yuki returns once more as narrator to wrap up the story, talking about how years later, Hana still remembered every detail of that morning, from the rain on the trees to the glittering spiderwebs to the sky itself. She spoke of how the next year, she was ready to head off to middle school, which would mean moving to the city, which was far from the country house she had grown up in, meaning she had to move away. Before she left, Hana reminisced about the years she had raised her two wolf children. Seeing the smile on her face as she talked about it, and her mother's gaze fixed at the mountaintop in the distance where Ame had given his answer, Yuki knew she was okay to leave. She knew her mother would be okay, even as she continued to live in that house in the countryside alone, but content. Just before the screen fades to black, Ame's howl is heard in the distance once more, Hana pausing to listen to it, and roll credits.


End file.
